Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New year, even if it was a little different this year. We had the tunnel wrapped up warm over the cold spell we had at the start of January, But now's the time to start thinking about what veg you want to be growing for the coming year, at the nursery Giulia as usual has ordered far too many vegetable seeds from the wholesaler. During January she made her personal veg patch behind the polytunnel even bigger.
The seeds she’ll be growing are for herself as well as for sale at the nursery, this time of the year she’ll starting off Tomatoes, Peppers, Chilli Peppers, Aubergine, Broad beans, Lettuce, Peas and many more, some other varieties will be sown later in the year.
Brexit has brought many changes to the Horticulture sector, previously we could send our plants anywhere in the EU with the plant passports that we’re licensed to issue by APHA, now we are restricted to England, Wales and Scotland without having to get an inspector in to issue a phytosanitary certificate. This is because the EU as well as NI are now in a separate plant health zone. UK businesses currently export 35million plants each year to NI alone, although we are a very small part of this! Many businesses have said it won't be worth them doing it with the new regulations.
This will also affect imports from the EU, this won’t affect us too much as they are all grown on site but it does affect our supply of certain succulent seeds from specialists in Germany and Sweden.
It remains to be seen what effect it will have on your more normal plants, but a lot of growers in the UK grow on plants that they have imported as smaller plugs from countries such as the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Portugal, having additional checks and certificates for these to bring into the UK will ultimately increase the cost that you’ll pay when you buy them. This will affect everything from small bedding plants to very large olive trees.
At the nursery we are getting ready for Spring, we’re making a new display area outside, we’re planning what new plants we’ll have to offer and sorting out seeds from suppliers and also planning out our new display beds at the nursery. We hope to have a wider selection of plants this year but also a new range of Terracotta pots.
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